German schools ban Office 365 due to privacy concerns

The German state of Hesse has ruled it’s illegal for its schools to use Office 365 after years of debate over whether the country’s schools and institutions should use Microsoft tools at all.

The Hesse Office for Data Protection and Information Freedom says the standard configuration in Office 365 could potentially make students’ and teachers’ personal data available to US officials. In addition to the information that users provide when they’re working in Office 365, the platform sends telemetry data back to the US.